The information used below is used with permission from the author Ralph Milton.

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Page Six

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Mirabile Dictu 26

 

Latin for "Marble Dictator!


Brush up your Latin
* "Domino vobiscum" (The pizza guy is here.)
* "Sharpei diem" (Seize the wrinkled dog.)
* "Nucleo predicus dispella conducticus" (Remove foil before microwaving.)
* "Motorolus interruptus" (Hold on, I'm going into a tunnel.)
* "Bodicus mutilatimus unemploymi forevercus" (Better take the nose ring out before the job interview.)
* "
E Pluribus Tupac" (Rap is everywhere.)
* "Veni, vidi, Pesci" (I came, I saw, I moidered da bum.)
* "Veni, vidi, Velcro" (I came; I saw; I stuck around.)
* "Robotisticus Governantimus Inevitabilitus" (Al Gore is going to be President.)
* "Ignoramus microsoftis multa pecunia dat" (Yeah, where DO I want to go today??)
* "Sic semper tyrannus" (Your dinosaur is ill.)
* "No Quid Pro Quo" (I'm sorry, we're all out of quid.)
* "Tempo fugit" (I drove my Ford off a bridge.)
* "E pluribus septum" (Multiple nose piercings.)

 

 

Mirabile Dictu 27

 

Latin for "Paying the syntax."

 

The following are from the mouths of babes. Or students writing exams. Or from some wisenheimer wanting something to post on the internet.


* The inhabitants of
Moscow are called Mosquitoes.
* A census taker is a man who goes from house to house increasing the population.
* The general direction of the
Alps is up.
* A virgin forest is a forest where the human hand has never set foot.
* The people who followed the Lord were called the 12 opossums.
* One of the main causes of dust is janitors.
* A scout respects all duly constipated authorities.
* The blood circulates through the body by flowing down one leg and up the other.
* Syntax is all the money collected at the church from sinners.
* The climate is hottest next to the Creator.

 

 

Mirabile Dictu 28

 

Latin for "this lousy halo!"

 

These slightly heretical "bumper stickers in heaven" are from Evelyn McLachlan  who is lucky we don't burn too many people at the stake anymore.

* Honk if you ARE Jesus
* Ask Me About My Previous Lives
* I Brake For Celestial Choirs
* I Died and Went To Heaven and All I Got Was This Lousy Halo

 

 

Mirabile Dictu 29

 

Latin for "Fat Chance!"

 

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
            We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, some freeways charge a toll, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
            And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?
            Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through the annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
            If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?            In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
            How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike?
How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?

                                                                                                   

 

Mirabile Dictu 30

 

Latin for "character lines!"

 

This from John Cockburn:


* Adult: A person who has stopped growing at both ends and is now growing in the middle.
* Cannibal: Someone who is fed up with people.
* Chickens: The only animals you eat before they are born and after they are dead.
* Committee: A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.
* Dust: Mud with the juice and the fun squeezed out.
* Egotist: Someone who is usually me-deep in conversation.
* Handkerchief: Cold storage.
* Inflation: Cutting money in half without damaging the paper.
* Mosquito: An insect that makes you like flies better.
* Raisin: Grape with a sunburn.
* Secret: Something you tell to one person at a time.
* Skeleton: A bunch of bones with the person scraped off.
* Toothache: The pain that drives you to extraction.
* Tomorrow: One of the greatest labor-saving devices of today.
* Yawn: An honest opinion openly expressed.
* Wrinkles: Something other people have. I have character lines.